Towards Wellbeing in Forest Communities: A Source Book for Local Government

Tool 1: Monitoring local poverty contexts through interactive mapping

Photo by Kristen Evans

Interactive mapping is a participatory tool for organising poverty information and local knowledge visually on maps. Any information can be included on the maps, such as the incidence of disease, quality of roads, location of health services, or household income, depending on what issues are locally relevant. Charts of data are often difficult to understand. However, when the same information is presented on a map, it becomes more useful and understandable to a wider range of people.

The method builds local capacity to produce simple reference maps that can be modified to represent different types of data and updated as new information becomes available. The maps can be generated by hand or, when the skills and equipment are present, on computers. This can involve training local technicians and community members to synthesise information, plot the relevant information on maps (manually or digitally), and organise meetings to present and discuss the maps. These people will also need to gather additional information to supplement the material from secondary sources.

The need for an accurate map that reflects actual local conditions seems obvious; however, it is surprising how frequently local governments lack such basic decision support tools. Often, existing information is not fully analysed or adequately used. Even if used, the products are poorly distributed (i.e. not widely) or put in formats that are not useful for local decision makers or participatory processes. For example, in Pando, several governmental and non-governmental institutions regularly collect information on rural conditions, but this information is transferred directly to departmental or national agencies rather than being compiled for use by municipal governments. Local governments usually have very modest resources and limited experience in collecting data; collecting new information can be too costly or difficult. Interactive mapping provides a way of transforming existing information into a more useful format.

Why is interactive mapping useful?

Box 9. Why is it interactive?

The method consists of a continuous process of revision and evaluation of local maps:

Local groups and government officials meet to share information, either existing data or experiential knowledge.
They transform the information into a map format.
They evaluate the maps publicly. This validates the maps. It also improves the credibility and quality of the maps.
The maps are continuously updated with new information and evaluated.

Interactive mapping helps local governments and communities to:

manage existing information and improve coordination among agencies
track changes in poverty within their jurisdiction in order to adapt planning by prioritising and targeting interventions
improve transparency and dialogue between local governments and their constituencies.
Interactive mapping shows where people live, the types of resources they have, the challenges they face and whether governmental programmes or services are provided nearby.

Representing local information this way makes it more accessible to people who are unlikely to read reports or tables and provides a way to present and discuss the information publicly. If done at regular intervals, interactive mapping is useful for tracking changes.

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